heard it, or to notice how rude it had been. Well,
THAT told about as plain as anything what we had on our hands. I
wandered around and NOW there was no trouble about thinking things.
They came in such a jumble I could get no sense from them; but one big
black thought came over, and over, and over, and wouldn't be put away.
It just stood, stayed, forced you, and made you look it in the face.
If Shelley weren't stopped quickly she was going up on the hill with
the little fever and whooping cough sisters. There it was! You could
try to think other things, to play, to work, to talk it down in the
pulpit, to sing it out in a tree, to slide down the haystack away from
it--there it stayed! And every glimpse you had of Shelley made it
surer.

There was no trouble about keeping awake that night; I couldn't sleep.
I stood at the window and looked down the Big Hill through the soft
white moonlight, and thought about it, and then I thought of mother. I
guess NOW you see what kind of things mothers have to face. All day
she had gone around doing her work, every few minutes suggesting some
new thing for one of us to try, or trying it herself; all day she had
talked and laughed, and when Sarah Hood came she told her she thought
Shelley must be bilious, that she had travelled all night and was
sleeping: but she would be up the first place she went, and then they
talked all over creation and Mrs. Hood went home and never remembered
that she hadn't seen Shelley. She worked Mrs. Freshett off the same
way, but you could see she was almost too tired to do it, so by night
she was nearly as white as Shelley, yet keeping things going. When the
house was still, she came into the room, and stood at the window as I
had, until father entered, then she turned, and I could see they were
staring at each other in the moonlight, as they had all day.

"She's sick?" asked father, at last.

"Heartsick!" said mother bitterly.

"We'd better have Doc come?"

"She says she isn't sick, and she won't see him."

"She will if I put my foot down."

"Best not, Paul! She'll feel better soon. She's so young! She must
get over it."

They were silent for a long time and then father asked in a harsh
whisper: "Ruth, can she possibly have brought us to shame?"

"God forbid!" cried mother. "Let us pray."

Then those two people knelt on each side of that bed, and I could hear
half the words they muttered, until I was wild enough to scream. I
wis